FGM 3 Interviewee: Nathaniel P. Reed Interviewer: Julian Pleasants Date: November 2, 2000; December 18, 2000 P: This is November 2, 2000. I am on Jupiter Island, Florida. I am speaking with Nathaniel P. Reed. When and where were you born? R: I was born on July 22, 1933, in a hospital that no longer exists in New York City. P: Early on, you went to school at Deerfield Academy. How did that experience influence your life? R: I think it had an enormous influence. I have just been given the alumni award, and I can give you a copy of my speech at Deerfield, which will give you chapter- and-verse how I grew up between Greenwich, Connecticut and here, and how much schooling at Deerfield meant to me, in the sense that I was able to continue my active field career, both on the river and in the woods and on the hillsides, and yet take up competitive team sports with a vengeance. As my speech will indicate to you, I was a very mediocre student. I was growing very, very rapidly. My body was growing at an extraordinary rate. Headmaster Boyden loved to say that I got three square meals a day and twelve hours of sleep and that I slept between and roomed between two of the brightest boys in my class, and the great hope was that something would rub off on me. Physically, I grew so rapidly that there was not a great deal of time or interest in books. I was really more interested in sleep, eating and the outdoors, and that was a great part of our lives down here and in Greenwich. In Greenwich, we were very lucky. We lived on a magnificent farm, which had 100-plus acres of woodland, and down here Jupiter Island was still a tropical paradise with alligators and bobcats on the island and owls. Across the way, there was not a fence for miles. You could walk and chase your bird dog forever. The river was full of fish, the skies were filled with birds. I lived in two paradises, one in the summer and one in the winter. P: In your speech, you mentioned that at Deerfield, you learned not only regimentation but developed strong friendships and learned how to work with other people. R: Yes. That was very, very important because, at Trinity College, I became the president of my fraternity and then went on in the military intelligence service and very rapidly became second-in-command of the intelligence wing, and then with the untimely death of a senior officer, I became the ranking officer as a first lieutenant. I had this huge office staff of master sergeants and staff sergeants, and I was barely wet behind the ears. My brother had gone to West Point and served with distinction in the Army. He had told me to, above all, trust your master sergeants. I happened to have the world=s best master sergeants, and FGM 3 Page 2 they took care of me like a broody hen. I learned to work with them and other intelligence officers, not only of the Air Force but of the Army and the Navy and of other services. I was very, very close to a whole bunch of English and Canadian intelligence officers at their air bases in Germany. I wandered back and forth and around with them, and I also had some great friends in the French Army. I learned a lot about teamsmanship, I learned a lot about trust, and I think I learned about mistrust, because it was at a very, very high moment of the Cold War. The Russians had an enormous Army/Air Force in the field. A serious mistake by [Nikita] Khrushchev [Soviet Premier] or [President Dwight] Eisenhower unquestionably would have led to war, Armageddon, but no mistakes were made. It was a marvelous stand-off and then finally, as we all know, the great Russian ship of state collapsed. P: Why did you choose Trinity College? R: I did not. It is a little-known story. I interviewed for Yale. My father and uncle had gone to Yale, and the dean of admissions said, I guess we will have to take you. It was in a period of time, that is long gone now, where the family member was given a nod over anybody else. I stood up at the interview and said, no, you do not have to take me, and walked out. So, April became May. My father and mother were pressing hard for me to make some decision as to what college I should go to. In my opinion, it was a great question of who would take me, and suddenly I got a note to see the Headmaster Dr. Boyden. He [was seated at his desk]Bas I was going between classes actually, sort of a three-minute drillBand he looked up from the telephone and he said, you are going to Trinity College, you are going to love it, and that was the end of the conversation. I did not even know where [Trinity] was [located]. In June, after graduation from Deerfield, my father said, rather quietly but rather firmly, do you not think it would be a good idea to drive up to Hartford and have a look around the campus? I said, is that where Trinity is? He said yes, it is in Hartford, and it is an old-line, very fine college, and I will go with you. I said, oh, spare me. He said, no, we are going together. How about Tuesday? I said, okay, I have not got anything going on Tuesday. Let us go. So we drove up to Trinity together. I walked by the chapel and looked down the long walk. Of course, in those days, the elm trees framed the long walk. There were probably thirty-six elms of more than 200 years of age. It was, without a doubt, with the Gothic architecture, one of the most staggeringly beautiful sights I had ever laid eyes on. [Headmaster] Frank Boyden and my father were right. I really loved Trinity. I had a difficult first and second year. I was still growing. The Korean War was on. I had great doubts whether I should be a student while the war was on [or] whether I should be at war. My brother was at war. Again, academic problems began to mount. I actually failed a course which was a requirement. It was Math 101, a dreadful course. Headmaster Boyden insisted that I try harder. I made a great friend who was the dean of admissions, and I wanted to learn how to play squash, a northeastern game if there ever was FGM 3 Page 3 one. Bill Peele, in many, many ways, kept me in Trinity. I saw him a month ago. He is recovering from a mild stroke. I spoke about the intensity of the friendship of an eighteen-year-old, and Bill was twenty-eight, so he is ten years older than I am, the intensity of the friendship that we formed. We battled on the squash court. I became such a maniac on squash that I took lessons in the evenings over at the West Hartford Country Club from one of the top pros in the country, named Eddie Reid of all things. [Bill Peele had been a star at Trinity.] I never beat him, but I would wear off all the frustrations of the day in that squash court in the evening. After showering, Bill would suggest that I take my books and go to a quiet corner in the library, and slowly, physical and mental maturation took place. My junior and senior years were really very exciting. Getting away from those horrible non-electives (whatever the hell they call them), getting into electives, being able to really study the things that I really was fascinated about, history and fine arts, especially the painting of the Renaissance and modern history, totally captivated me. I began to read hard. I began to study hard and continued to enjoy life. I fished every weekend in the spring, and I shot every weekend in the fall. I was very, very lucky. I made enormously close friends who remained life friends. [With] the very serious chapel timeBin those days, there was a very strict requirement of the number of chapel appearances per term, which was considered drudgery by mostBI began to get a very strong foundation in the Episcopal church which I have maintained to this day. I am very pleased that I never walk into [the Trinity] chapel without finding where I sat. I actually gave a pew end. I still love walking in [there]. It is one of the most beautiful Gothic chapels in the world. Trinity has meant a great deal to me. I served as a trustee for a long period of time. I enjoyed that service enormously. I served as a trustee at Deerfield, actually, simultaneously. I would fly up from Washington on a weekend from one and back to Washington and back up, usually the next weekend, for the other. After I had left Washington, I would fly up a day or two early, because I was chairman of the buildings and grounds at both the school and the college. To really get a firm grasp on the roofs that needed to be replaced or trees that needed to be fed or whatever, as always, I took those assignments terribly seriously.